Bighorn River Fishing Report – Mid Winter

Well we had quite the arctic front hit the Bighorn River valley. One day it’s 46F and the next it’s -25F (with the windchill). A warmup is on the way and fishing will be back to what it was. Pretty darn good for January. Reports of success are found from the Afterbay all the way down to Mallards. We were out before the front hit and the streamer fishing was very good. Not stupid good, but good enough. We busted out the two handers and picked up fish in about every spot where the water was barely slow enough to swing. Many of you know this, but the focus of finding fish on the Horn’ in the winter should be in slower deeper parts of the run and tailouts. The water temps are cold and so are the trout. The browns have about finished up their spawn for the year, so please be careful where you step.

Good flies this time of year include:

Streamers: Sparkle minnows, Krystal buggers in olive and black, small zonkers in natural and white, small JJ’s, anything about a size 6 with white or yellow/olive or yellow/brown combo works great as well.

Dries: Not a ton of fish up on them, but when you find them most will be keyed on midges, so Griffith’s Gnats, or similar clusters, smokejumper midges, hanging midges will all work. A few lingering Baetis are around and the fish you will find will probably eat them.

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